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Chapter 2
Slideshows and Bo-Bo’s
“Sex Ed! That’s fantastic.” said Dave, smiling at Ed’s new nickname.
The next lesson of the morning was business studies where Ollie and Dave were working on a slide show.
“You have to go to these stupid lessons,” said Ollie, “so you might as well get something out of them.”
Dave nodded.
“Yeah, you can’t learn about shagging in school,” said Dave, “you’ve gotta actually do it, haven’t you.”
“Erm…yeah.” replied Ollie, a bit intimidated by Dave’s confident words.
To Ollie, girls didn’t really exist. Well of course they existed, but he had trouble seeing himself…you know…‘doing it’ with any of the ones around him or for that matter any girl ever. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them or find them good looking, it was just that he didn’t think any girl would want to be more than just friends with him. The opposite sex seemed to exist in a magical girl castle that floated in the clouds just beyond his reach. He could look in and see them in the courtyard, fixing their hair and doing their homework, but knew that even if he did reach up and knock on the big front door, the girls inside would probably be far too busy to open the door and talk to him.
Ollie had also been thinking about what the teacher had said to him at the end of the lesson. He’d recently noticed that teachers seemed to have an annoying habit of saying things in a way that made you think about them after the lesson had finished. He also remembered that Ed had showed him how to put the condom on properly.
‘Better not push this ‘Sex Ed’ thing too much,’ he thought, ‘Ed might tell the others about my inside out johnny!’
While Dave and Ollie were busy talking, Fiona quietly walked up behind them and clapped a hand on each of their shoulders.
“WWWWA!” exclaimed the boys both spinning round to look at her as she pulled up a chair to sit down next to them.
“Come on lads.” she said laughing, “Haven’t you finished yet?”
“Well?” she asked. “Everyone else finished this ages ago. What have you been doing?”
They looked at each other and then back to her.
“Oliver and myself,” said Dave putting on a funny voice, “are taking a evaluative approach to the task to ensure we have reviewed all possible angles.”
“What, you’re messing around and talking about girls?” said Fiona folding her arms.
“David and I,” said Ollie putting on the same voice, “are considering all of the relevant facts to ensure that our presentation arouses both interest and action.”
“Right, course you are.” replied Fiona. “Please, don’t let me interrupt.”
“How come you’re always the first to finish your work, Fee?” said Ollie moving slides around on his screen.
She shrugged her shoulders and then had a thought.
“Well, it’s all part of my master plan.” she said with a smile.
“Yeah?” asked Ollie with interest. “What’s that then?”
“I want to become a big money player in the world of global business,” said Fiona, “so I can hire you two ninnies to clean my office.”
“What?”
“That’s right,” said Fiona smiling “you’ll have to use tiny weenie little cleaning things that have come out of a doll’s house.”
She smiled and mimed sweeping up an imaginary pile of rubbish on the desktop with a very small dustpan and brush.
Ollie looked at Dave, who shrugged his shoulders.
“Would I get my own pen?” asked Ollie.
“What?” she replied.
“If I worked for you, would I get my own pen?” he repeated.
Fiona sat back in her chair and looked at the ceiling while she thought about the question.
“I’d start you off on crayons, and see how you both got on.” she said looking back at them while nodding and smiling.
Dave and Ollie looked at each other again.
“That’s seems pretty fair.” said Dave.
Of course Fiona was just having a laugh. The thought of having a proper, grown up job was too scary to think about. Even visiting her older brother at uni for the weekend was beyond weird.
“Fee, will you check my slide show?” asked Ollie, knowing that she would correct his spelling and grammar as she went along.
“Ollie,” said Fiona standing up, “if I had £5 for every time…” she shook her head and moved Ollie out of the way so she could sit in his chair.
“Thanks Fee!”
Dave sneaked a sideways glance at her as she worked on the slides. He liked the serious, intense look that she had on her face as she worked.
“So, are you having another party any time soon?” asked Dave, pretending to do his work.
Fiona didn’t answer straight away, she was busy making a correction.
“Um…yeah.” she said. “I think my brother might come back for a weekend and do something for his birthday.”
“Cool.” said Dave casually. “When’s that?”
“Oh, couple of months yet.” replied Fiona. “I’ll let everyone know nearer the time.”
While they were talking, Ollie had gone to his bag and taken out the banana. He carefully folded a chocolate bar wrapper and tied it at the point where its neck would be.
“Ollie, what is that?” asked Fiona.
Ollie hadn’t noticed Fiona turning in her seat and he looked up to see her waiting for a reply with her eyebrows raised.
“It’s my banana.” replied Ollie.
“Ollie had sex ed class this morning.” explained Dave.
“Oh yeah, Becca was talking about that yesterday.” said Fiona nodding.
“So is this home work or something?” she added taking the banana from Ollie for a closer look.
“You’ve got to look after Madam Banana and make sure she doesn’t have lots of little banana children without getting married first?”
Fiona looked up at him and grinned.
“No, that would be…stupid!” replied Ollie, suddenly realising how silly it must look to have drawn a face on a banana and dress it up in a little outfit.
“Anyway,” he replied, “it’s a man banana, not a lady banana.”
“Right, of course, how stupid of me.” said Fiona. “It’s not wearing a dress made out of a crisp packet!”
Fiona threw the banana back to him and he caught it clumsily. Ollie pretended he didn’t care what she thought, but her words lodged in his head and an idea struck him.
‘Hang on, I could make a little cape out of a crisp packet’ he thought, ‘that would look ace!’
“How did Ed find the lesson, Ollie?” asked Fiona looking at Ollie’s work again “Was he ok? He looked a bit nervous in the playground this morning.”
“You mean…Sex Ed?” said Dave casually, showing off to Fiona by pretending to concentrate on his work too.
“What?” she asked.
“Ollie thought it up,” he added, “it’s Ed’s brilliant new nickname.”
Fiona turned back to look at Ollie. He was looking at the screen and pretending to take an interest in her corrections before turning to smile at her.
“You boys are mean.” she said shaking her head as she turned back to look at the screen.
“What? As if that’s any worse than some of the things you girls say about each other?” said Dave. “I mean, what about when you and Becca had that bust up?”
Fiona had almost forgotten the week long war that had sprung up after Becca had said something that she had taken the wrong way.
“Er…yeah, I guess.” she mumbled guiltily, remembering how much hard work the girls had put in to get them back on speaking terms again.
She knew she could be stubborn sometimes and it was annoying, especially if it was over things that, looking back at it, didn’t really matter that much.
“Why don’t you ask sex Ed about it at break?” said Dave. “I’m sure he’d love to…fill you in!”
Dave smiled very thinly before looking on the screen again. He knew a tiny part of Fiona fancied him and that was all it took. It was now just a matter of time before they were at party or someone’s house or something, and it would just happen…Boom! Back the of net.
Thank you, good night!
It was a new tactic that he had recently thought up, and unknown to Fiona, she was the first lucky lady he was trying it out on.
The slow waiting game.
It might be months before anything happened, years maybe. But he would get there in the end. Sooner or later the gentle pressure of his good looks and skill would be too much for her to ignore. Like a chocolate bar in a vending machine that had advanced out of its holder, but not fallen for collection. Everyone could see it through the glass and one day it would suddenly fall and be claimed.
Sweet. Random. Treasure.
+ + +
“So what was it like? What did you do?” asked Barry trying not to look too excited.
Gita and Ed looked at each other.
“We put a condom on a…banana?” replied Ed nervously.
He was pleased that the sex education lesson was over and he was back to the safety of normal lessons.
“And?” asked Holly.
Ed looked back at Gita. They hadn’t really had time to think about the lesson.
“We talked a bit about it, you know…babies and condoms and things.” said Gita.
Ed nodded.
“And?” said Barry.
“Well that was sort of it really.” said Ed shrugging his shoulders.
“Wow, sounds…great.” said Barry to Holly in a disappointed voice.
After the first excitement about the condoms it was difficult for them to feel strongly about it. The lesson wasn’t sex, it was the written description of the pencil outline of sex. The audio commentary from a documentary film, a museum display case containing the plaster cast of the imprint of something that historians believed may once have been sexy.
Gita was a bit more positive about it than Ed. Putting the condom on had actually been ok, and handling one had taken some of her concerns away. The problem was that it also brought up lots of other questions and she didn’t think any of the answers could be found on a worksheet or in a million school lessons.
“Right then,” said the teacher, “let’s turn to Act one scene three, that’s page…56 and how about…er…you two read for us?”
They followed the scene in their books, letting sexy thoughts drift to the back of their minds.
“So read through this passage again,” said the teacher, “and then I’d like you to look for references to the themes that Shakespeare has set out in the first act.”
The class fell silent as they picked over the lines. Barry looked down at his book, then slowly turned his eyes to the side and saw that from his seat he had an almost perfect view between the buttonholes of Holly’s shirt. The lacy detail on the cup of her bra peaked back at him and he let his gaze linger and slowly titled his head to build up more of a picture. He thought Holly’s boobs were amazing and if it were possible, believed they should be officially recognised and classed as magnificent! He knew he needed to get on with the task and got a final eyeful before looking down to his book.
Holly looked at him just as Barry looked away from her and straight away she realised what he’d been doing. She couldn’t believe it! Boys just couldn’t keep their eyes to themselves. She looked over at Gita and they had a short silent conversation in looks, head nods and eyebrow twitches:
‘Barry was looking at my knockers AGAIN!’
‘What, just now in the lesson?’
‘Yep.’
‘Seriously, I can’t believe boys sometimes!’
‘I know it takes the piss doesn’t it.’
Gita’s first reaction was anger. How could Barry do this, again and again? But as always, her thoughts soon changed to regret.
‘Why?’ she thought.
Why don’t boys ever look at me like they look at Holly or Fiona or Becca? She looked down at her book and let the thoughts swim around in her mind. It was because she wasn’t curvy like Holly, or loud and upfront like Becca or pretty like Fiona. She was just plain old Gita.
She was ok. She did have good hair, quite liked her face, had clear skin. She supposed she had a good bum, at least that’s what the girls told her. She’d seen Barry and the other lads ogling girls a couple of times and it wasn’t pretty. She didn’t want to be looked at and judged like that, but at the same time a little reassurance wouldn’t be terrible, would it? To know that a boy might like you? Even a little bit? That they might see you as maybe a possible girlfriend and not just as a friend…who was a girl?
Ed, totally unaware of all of this, was reading each line of the play to carefully extract every last drop of meaning. He liked looking at the girls too, but…well, it was rude to stare wasn’t it. That and he was worried they might see him looking at them. Because of this, he decided that it was only safe to look at a girl when she was far enough away to not see where he was putting his eyes:
Barry looked over at Ed. He couldn’t wait to be away from the girls and talk to Ed and Ollie properly about their lesson. After all, there were some things you just couldn’t talk to girls about!
“Do you want me to check yours Dave?” asked Fiona.
“Nar…cheers though.”
“Ok.” said Fiona and changed a piece of formatting before swapping places with Ollie, who thanked her for the help.
“I see your team’s manager might leave.” she said to Dave.
“No, he won’t go,” he said over his shoulder, “not now they’ve promised him more transfer funds.”
“Yeah, really though, they need to sort it out don’t they?”
“They’re doing ok! They just need to keep going and they’ll be back at the top in a couple of years.”
“Mmm…I dunno, not if they keep playing like they did at the weekend.”
“You think?…You’ll see.” said Dave with a smile. “Slowly, slowly, you know?”
Dave didn’t like it when people talked about his team like that, especially when they didn’t really know them like he did. He had supported them since before he had even been born, he knew what they could do.
“You should think about playing Fee. I’ve seen a girls 5 a side at the pitches where we train, must have a league or something cos’ there’s different girls there every week.”
“Oh, really?” replied Fiona with a smile.
“Yeah,” said Dave, “some of them are alright, you know.”
The lads on his team laughed and shouted at the girls, but Dave didn’t. He could quickly see that some of them knew what they were doing. He didn’t care who you were, what colour your skin was or what you had in your shorts. The only thing that mattered on the pitch was your team getting the ball in the back of the other teams net. Stamina, speed, precision, teamwork. Some players had it, and some should think about playing badminton instead!
“So,” said Fiona with a giggle, “you’ve been checking out their talent have you?”
It was only then that Dave realised what she meant.
“I mean…they’re good players.” he said turning round and giving her one of his smoothest smiles.
Slowly, slowly like his team making their way up the league tables, he would eventually get his hands on her trophy. She smiled back at him and nodded.
“I’ll think about it.” said Fiona.
“Ok,” said the teacher, “let’s have a look at your slide shows then.”
“Bye-bye boys.” said Fiona and walked back to her computer.
“See ya.”
“Thanks Fee.” said the boys as they shifted into overdrive to try and get their work done before it was their turn to present.
Fiona could never fancy someone like Dave, and it was mainly because he knew he was fit.
‘What if he tried it on at a party or something?’ she thought.
That would be awful! If she turned him down he’d probably get all moody and not talk to her. Even worse, what if he asked her out? What would she say? Fiona could see why he was popular with girls and it wasn’t just his looks. Dave carried his confidence from the football field around with him like an emotional boot bag. He was like Ed or Ollie or Barry but with the all rough edges smoothed off. Unlike the other boys, Dave somehow managed to make his words sexy, not crude immature.
As she unlocked her computer, Fiona smiled and considered Dave’s encouragement to play football. She was a netball girl. Bit of tennis maybe and some ping-pong at the youth club, but not football.
Holly had no choice but to realise that people (mainly boys) would look at her chest. Her breasts had started growing, and then stopped for a bit and then…wham! All of sudden they were there and kept coming.
Her Mum kept encouraging her to ‘share’ how she felt about her ‘developing womanhood’, but Holly was having none of it. She ignored her Mum’s comments and only talked about it with her briefly when they had to go shopping for new bras.
She just didn’t feel comfortable talking about it, especially not with her Mum. But the subject was always there, like a pair of hot air balloons in the room. They were always in her field of vision below her and she had slowly grown to like them, the twins. Not that she’d tell anyone that of course! She laughed about it in her head and imagined a hot air balloon in the shape of a pair of boobies drifting across a pretty landscape at sunset.
She looked up to find Ed giving her a funny look. The smirk on her face dropped away and was replaced by the beginnings of a blush as she snapped her head down to her copy of the play.
Recently her brain only seemed to have two setting, bored and PANIC! After the lesson Ed might ask her what she had been smiling about and then she’d have to come up with an excuse.
‘Oh crap!’ she thought. ‘What do I tell him, if he asks what I was thinking about?’
Could it have been something that she had read in the play? Probably not, it was a tragedy with lots of shouty, stabby bits. She remembered something funny Ollie had said in the playground before school that morning and decided that if Ed asked her, she would say she had just remembered it and that it was the reason why she had been smiling. Gita saw her blush on the way down and they had another silent chat:
‘Barry, again?’
‘No, not this time, it’s nothing.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yeah, I’ll tell you later.’
‘Ok.’
Because none of the girls ever said anything about it, Barry thought his non-stop-eye-pop went unnoticed. This made him more confident in his looking, and he sometimes thought he was like a silent, stealthy ninja, carefully capturing sight of a curve or snatching a glimpse of a girl. His confidence did have limits though, he never followed up his observations with smutty comments like Dave sometimes did. His looking was a private pastime for his eyes only.
He didn’t see anything wrong with checking girls out, you couldn’t not look at people could you? If you didn’t look around at the world, you might miss something. And anyway it was a free country wasn’t it, he could put his eyes wherever he wanted. After all his looks weren’t hurting anyone, were they?
It was fine to look at girls, and girls could look at the boys too, and everyone should keep an eye out for Ollie. It was always a good idea to know exactly where Ollie was and what he was up to at all times. The last thing you wanted to do was to lose sight of him because before you knew it, he’d probably do that thing he does…you know, pulling the corner of his shirt tail out through the fly of his trousers and colouring the end in with a pencil so it looked a bit like his—
“Ok,” said he teacher, “let’s have a look at what we’ve got shall we?”
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Mike Reed 